Damian: The Man with the Eye of Steel
by Damian650
Summary: Damian is a one-eyed, sharp-eyed, cowboy with extensive knowledge of energy weapons who likes to drown his sorrows in whiskey. But what happens when he meets someone with connections to his past?
1. Ain't That a Kick in the Head

Hello readers! I would like for you all to know that this is my first ever FanFic so I don't expect it to be extremely popular but I'm still proud of it. The only reason this story ever got written is because of three encouraging, inspiring, and ass-kicking sets of people. First: my parents who always noticed that I had some pretty good ideas for a story. Second: my best friend who would always either tell me I need to get my ideas written down or chew my ass out for not doing so already. Finally: Red Slayer and his story "The Girl with the Blood Red Hair" for, if I had not read it, I never would have had the inspiration to actually hunker down and start writing. Now, this story is rated M for mostly cussing and bloody violence, I may have some sprinkle of romance later on but not too much since I suffer from LOE. For those of you who don't know what LOE is, it is a very deadly disease called Lack Of Experience. :P For all you suing addicts out there, I do not own Fallout New Vegas nor any of the characters, except for Damian and my friend owns another one. So, without further adieu, on with the story!

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><p>Chapter 1: Ain't That a Kick in the Head<p>

"Son of a bitch that hurts!" a man, who looked to be in his early thirties, said as he reached up to his head, which is covered in bandages and some even reached down and covered his left eye, some champagne-colored hair was peeking between the bandages as well. He looked around to find himself in an unfamiliar bed in a house just as foreign to him as the bed.

"Ah! A sign of life! Well isn't this good news, I was beginning to worry. You've been out for a good two days now." a voice sounded from his left. When the man looked over, he found an elderly, balding man, who looked to be in his late sixties.

"Huh? Who are you and where the hell am I?" the man inquired who was feeling extremely irritable because his head wouldn't stop throbbing for some unknown reason.

"I'm Doc Mitchell and you're in a friendly little town by the name of Goodsprings," Doc Mitchell explained, "and, like I've said, you've been out for a while now. You should probably take it easy for a little bit before you- hey slow down!" While the Doc was talking, the man began to try and sit up. When he actually got up, he realized he might have gotten up too fast and almost fell back down, if Doc Mitchell hadn't caught him.

"Okay, ow... Now my head hurts worse. You got any Med-X Doc?" The man was in a considerable amount of pain from his attempt to sit up.

"I'd give you some but I'm afraid you would overdose. I've already got you on three doses of it." Mitchell informed the man, "If you don't mind me askin', what's your name? Do you remember your name?"

"It's uhh... It's Damian, Damian Winchester." Damian replied as he rubbed his forehead, "What happened to me?"

"We found you up at the cemetery in an exceptionally shallow grave with two bullet holes in your... head." Mitchell reluctantly answered, "And good thing we found you when we did, any longer and I doubt you would've made it."

"Oh... WHAT?" Damian was just a little surprised at this bit of information that he couldn't remember, for obvious reasons.

"Yep, and somehow, you were still kickin', and so you were brought here for me to fix ya up." explained Doc, "I had to go rootin' around in your noggin to get all the bits of lead out. I take pride in my needlework but you better tell me if I left anything out of place." He handed Damian a mirror, "How'd I do?"

Damian looked at himself in the mirror, seeing his mustache and goatee combo referred to as the Mephistopheles was still there, he began examining himself left and right and noticed that, while his right, hazel eye seemed okay, his left eye was throbbing a bit, "Everything looks about right but..." he began to lift up the bandages covering his left eye, "... why are these covering my-"

Doc interrupted him "You might not want to do that."

Damian stopped, "Why?" he queried.

"That's where you were shot. There was so much damage to your left eye, there wasn't any possible way to save it"

Damian sat there, staring at his covered eye, "Oh... I see." He thought about that for a moment, "Heh, no pun intended." But then his face had a sad, mournful look on it, "I think I should see it," he finally said, "just in case someone asks, ya know." He then lifted up the bandages and instantly felt a wave of nausea come over him. Under those bandages was a blood-red eye with a blackish hole to the (mirror's) right of the pupil and part of the top eye lid was missing as well. Damian quickly pulled the bandages down as he felt himself nearly vomit.

As Damian sat there, Doc looked sympathetically at him and thought that maybe he could lift his spirits a little if the topic was changed. "Now, how 'bout we see if you can stand up, hmm?" and so Damian started to get up, hung on to Doc Mitchell's arms for balance, and only felt a slight bit dizzy this time. Now that he was standing up, Doc could get a much better look at him. Damian seemed to be about six feet tall, where he was only about five and a half, and he seemed to have a bit of muscle on him as well. "Well, you're quite the large man now aren't ya?"

"Huh? Oh, yes. Though, not as big as deathclaw I think." Damian has heard that line a few times to many, but what can you do? "Hey Doc, you know who it was that shot me?"

"No, I don't rightly know. But I'm sure someone else in town might know though." Doc thought about this for a minute but it seemed he decided to give up and switch the topic, "How about you try walking across the room, over by that vigor tester machine."

Damian looked across the room to the vigor tester and saw that it was less than 10 feet away. He stood there thinking about how he felt. His legs, sturdy as they were, were still a bit shaky. "Hmm... Alright I'll try." he decided, uneasily, and took a step. Seeing as it was not as hard as he thought it would be, he took a few more steps until he reached the vigor tester which said "Vit-O-Matic" in big flashy, metal words on top.

"Go ahead and give the handle a squeeze." Doc encouraged. Damian grasped the handle and squeezed and all of his stats popped up. His stats showed he was 'Barrel Chested' for strength, a 'Big-Eyed Tiger' for perception, 'Stain-Resistant' for endurance, a 'Cheery Salesman' for charisma, 'Omniscient' for intelligence, 'Under Control' for agility, and had '13 Pitch-Black Cats' for luck, at which he grimaced. "Look at that! Maybe them bullets did your brain some good!" Doc was in awe at how intelligent Damian was.

"Maybe," Damian started, "if only I wasn't so dang unlucky."

"Yes, but, by the look of it, you've got experience, and with experience comes skill. Now, we know your vitals are good but that doesn't mean them bullets didn't leave you nuttier than a bighorner dropping." Mitchell said, "What do ya say you take a seat on my couch and we go through a couple o' questions. See if your dogs are still barking."

"Alright..." Damian's mind was elsewhere, reminiscing of the days of 'experience' for him, in a hole in the ground, back in Arizona.

As Damian took a seat on the couch, Doc Mitchell sat in a chair across from him and began the test. "Alright, I'm gonna say a word and you say the first thing that comes to mind. Dog."

"Train." Damian answered.

"House."

"Shelter."

"Night."

"Dream."

"Bandit."

"Vaporize."

"Light."

"Flash."

"Mother."

"Caretaker."

"Okay," Doc continued, "Now I got a few statements. I want you to tell me how much they sound like something you'd say. First one: 'Conflict just ain't in my nature'."

"Strongly disagree." Damian replied without hesitation.

"'I ain't given to relying on others for support'."

"Disagree."

"'I'm always fixin' to be the center of attention'."

"Heh," Damian scoffed, "Strongly disagree."

"'I'm slow to embrace new ideas'."

"Ehh..." Damian contemplated this statement for a moment, "... Well, I only hesitate because I grew up with a family that was stuck in the past but I'll have to say disagree."

"'I charge in to deal with my problems head-on'."

"Most definitely, strongly agree."

"Almost done here," Doc confided, as he pulled out a few Rorschach test cards, seeing the bored look in Damian's eye, "What do ya say you have a look at this. Tell me what you see."

Damian examined the splatter for a minute and said, "Hmm... A broken chain I think."

Doc took the first card down and gestured towards the next card as he asked, "And this?"

Damian looked slightly intrigued at this card and answered, "It's some piece of space-age technology."

Mitchell took the second one down and said, "Okay then, last one."

Damian saw the third card and answered confidently, "A light in the darkness."

"Alright then, I guess that just about does it. I'll see you out." said Doc Mitchell as he got up and walked towards the front of the house and Damian followed after him. As they reached the front door, Doc Mitchell went to a footlocker by the door and started pulling out an assortment of objects and a set of clothes, all of which he gave Damian and said, "Here, this all that we found on you when you were brought in. I looked through the note to see if I could find the next of kin, but it was only about a platinum chip."

Damian examined the pile of stuff handed to him. In the pile of assorted things was a .44 magnum revolver with 42 rounds, a laser pistol with 30 shots worth of electron packs, sunglasses, a broken trail carbine, a Mojave Express note, and a large satchel with some gun holsters in it. The clothes were known to the wastes as a bounty hunter duster and a rattan cowboy hat. Then Doc handed him a large electronic device that looked as if it went on a person's arm and an eye patch. "The eyepatch is for obvious reasons and that electronic device there goes on your wrist. See, I grew up in one of those vaults and everyone got one of those. I ain't got no use for it so you can have it. Also, you should probably put those clothes on before you leave so folk don't poke fun at ya for lacking modesty. You can use my bedroom in the back if you want."

It wasn't until now that Damian became slightly self-conscious about what he was wearing, which was next to nothing besides an undershirt and some boxers. "Thanks, I will." Damian accepted the offer went to the bedroom. It didn't have much in it, not note-worthy at least, just a bed, a coffee table with a chessboard, and an old wardrobe with broken-in glass windows on it. He put his stuff on the bed and looked over his duster. Damian has owned this duster since before he came to the Mojave from the south, so long, in fact, that he had added a couple additions himself. There were holsters on the inside of each flap of the duster. Damian would usually have his trusty trail carbine underneath the left flap, the handle of which was cracked and split, rendered it useless, so he just put it in his satchel. Damian then went to his laser pistol which was given to him by his father before... the incident. He stuck that in the satchel as well. Damian threw on the bounty hunter duster, picked up the eye patch, walked over to the wardrobe, and hung the eye patch on the corner of the wardrobe. Looking at himself through the reflective surface of the broken glass on the wardrobe, Damian began to unwrap the bandages around his head. After they were off, he stuffed them in an inside pocket on his duster and looked back at the glass. He kept his left eye shut in fear of vomiting in the good doctor's house, but he still tried to examine what was left of it. Seeing that, well, there wasn't much left to see, he grabbed the eye patch and wrapped it around his head, atop which sat champagne-colored, short hair that he parted on the left, and placed the patch over his left eye.

Damian proceeded to put on his rattan cowboy hat, slip on his sunglasses over his eye patch, and clip on his two pistol holsters underneath the outer flap of the bounty hunter duster. He then put the .44 magnum in the right holster, put each type of ammunition he had in separate pockets on the duster, slipped the Pipboy 3000 on his left wrist, and slung the satchel strap over his head so the actual satchel was resting at his left side and returned to Doc Mitchell at the front door.

"There, you look much better!" Doc exclaimed as Damian rounded the corner.

"Yeah, thanks for all the help and patching me up, Doc." Damian replied.

"No problem, its what I do." Mitchell said with a smile. "If you ever need supplies, go see Chet at the general store in town, or if you need a drink or somethin' to eat, Trudy at the Prospector Saloon will set you up, and, if ya ever get yourself banged up, come see me and I'll fix ya right up."

"Yeah okay, thanks again."

"Yep, I'll be seein' ya, and try not to get yourself killed... again."

With that, Damian opened the door and walked out into the bright, scorching hot sunlight of the wastes.

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><p>Phew... That took forever to do. I know most of you will think that this chapter was pretty slow but I promise it will get better because I was just trying to let all you readers out there know what kind of person Damian is personality, statistically, and physically-wise. Anyhow, constructive criticism and comments would be very welcome, but no flaming. Also, I will try to update this story as soon as possible, but it will probably only be on weekends and maybe a chapter a week, two if I'm on a roll. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you liked and will like it.<p>

**Update**

I have changed the tense of my story because it just didn't sound right in present tense and I corrected a few errors.


	2. Goodsprings

First, let me say how freaking sorry I am on how late I am on uploading this chapter. Motivation and I weren't speaking for a while. It took my friends and family to keep nagging at me to continue. So here's chapter 2.

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><p>Chapter 2: Goodsprings<p>

Damian Winchester walked out of the house and shielded his eyes for a moment since the sun was so damn bright. When his vision cleared up, he saw the town called Goodsprings laid out before him. A large road ran right down the middle of it. Left of the road were a few houses, a general store (presumably owned by Chet), and the Prospector Saloon. Right of the road, there was a house that was still intact surrounded by a shit-ton of houses that were nearly burnt to the ground, and a schoolhouse that was a little far off.

Damian decided to go to the saloon to see if there was any way of getting a free drink to make the throbbing in his head go away or at least make some caps to be able to afford one. He trudged off towards the saloon and, when he reached the front porch of it, he saw an elderly black man with white hair and a beard sitting in a chair next to the door. "Good day, sir." Damian said with a smile.

"Howdy," the old man had a deep rugged voice, "you that one the metal feller found in the graveyard?"

"Uhh... Yeah. The name's Damian Winchester. Who's the 'metal feller'?" Damian inquired.

"My name's Easy Pete and the metal man who found you's name is Victor. You'd probably find him somewhere 'round here. He just rolls around town aimlessly all day." Easy Pete seemed to be a nice enough man.

"Hmm. Say, do you know where I could make a few caps? I'm awfully thirsty."

"Hmm..." Easy Pete contemplated this for a moment, "Well, Sunny might be needin' your help gecko-huntin'. She's inside."

"Okay, thanks." and Damian walked inside but not before he heard a "G'bye" from Easy Pete. He had to chuckle, Easy Pete was very easy-going.

As Damian turned to shut the door behind him, he heard a menacing growl of a dog behind him. He spun around and almost drew his revolver, if it weren't for a woman who called out "Cheyenne stay!" He looked up at the woman, she was young, mid-twenties probably, a little over 5 feet tall with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was decked out with leather armor and, when she looked up at him, had a bright smile on her face.

"You don't have to worry," the woman reassured, "she won't bite unless I tell her to. You're the guy Doc was taking care of, right? My name's Sunny Smiles."

"Yeah," Damian's face brightened at her smile, "The name's Damian Winchester. Nice to meet ya. I'm looking for a way to make a few caps and heard you might need help gecko-hunting."

"Let me guess, Easy Pete? Yeah, I could use some help. You any good with a gun?"

"I promise you, I'm damn good with a gun." Damian confidently said without a hint of doubt in his voice.

"Oh yeah?" Sunny challenged, "We'll see about that. Come with me out back, we have a target range where you can show me"

With that, Sunny picked up two varmint rifles that were leaning up against the wall and the two marched through the bar (which, for some reason, didn't have a bartender) with Cheyenne tailing behind them and went out the back to the 'target range'.

As they were walking out back, Damian noticed that the targets were a bunch of empty Sunset Sarsaparilla bottles sitting along a fence. They walked to a spot about thirty feet away from the fence and then turned to face the bottles on it.

"Here," Sunny tossed a varmint rifle with a full clip to Damian, "let's see if you can actually hit something, take a shot at those Sunset bottles."

Damian looked at the rifle, then at the bottles, then at Sunny... and smirks. Faster than lightning, Damian whips up the rifle to his shoulder, took less than a split second to aim down the sights, and fired five shots, one right after another, without hesitation, save for cocking back the bolt to load another shot into the barrel, and five bottles went flying off the fence, each shattered by a 5.56mm round. Damian lowered the rifle and turned to give a look at Sunny as if to say 'Told ya so.' to see Sunny's wide eyes with shock and awe.

The only thing she was able to hold her mind together long enough to say is, "Damn."

Putting his facial expression into words, Damian said, "Told ya so."

"Yeah, remind me not to tick you off. Now, let's go hunt some geckos." As Sunny turned to go, she tossed Damian a few clips of ammo to use on the hunt, which Damian reloaded his rifle with, putting the spent clip in his satchel.

Damian quickly followed Sunny and Cheyenne south to a water pump nearby the town and, as they reached the area, they hid behind a large rock-face in order to sneak up on the offending creatures.

Sunny looked around the corner, "There they are!" Damian looked around to see two toddler-size lizards wandering around the pump. Damian whispered a plan in Sunny's ear and she motioned for Cheyenne to stay. The two humans crept out, varmint rifles aimed at a different gecko, and fired simultaneously. The geckos drop dead without even knowing what hit them.

"That all?" Damian seemed disappointed.

"Nope, there are two more pumps that need to be taken care of."

"Oh, good more fun for me then."

The trio jogged further south to the next pump to find three geckos had moved in. Before they could get to a hiding spot, the geckos spotted them and sprintted at the three with their mouths full of sharp teeth wide open, tongues waggling, and clawed-arms flailing.

Wasting no time, Sunny and Damian readied their rifles and opened fire while Cheyenne charged ahead. Two of the geckos were being peppered by bullets while Cheyenne pounced on and ripped the throat out of the third.

When all three geckos lay dead, Damian exclaimed, "Well that got int-"

He was cut off by a voice off in the distance that cried out "Help!" Before Sunny could register what was just heard, Damian sped off like a rocket down a dirt trail in the direction of the source of the cry. As Damian rounded a corner, he saw the third and final pump... as well as three geckos that had cornered a young blonde woman. Her settlers' clothes were shredded and bloodied and she was swinging a meat cleaver in an attempt to ward off the vicious creatures and was failing miserably. Damian stopped running at about 100 feet from the geckos and, while holding his rifle in his left hand, drew his revolver in a flash and fired, faster than the bottles on account of there being no bolt-action to fiddle with, he obliterated each gecko's head with a round in each.

Seeing all the unmoving, headless geckos lying on the ground, the woman collapsed, exhausted and wounded. Sunny finally caught up and rushed over with Damian to the young woman, seeing the large gashes left by the geckos' claws and teeth, Damian said, "Crap! We need to get you to Doc Mitchell. Can you stand, miss?"

"I think so, yes." the woman groaned in pain as they helped her up. With Damian basically carrying her, the group of four headed for Goodsprings.

When they reached town, Damian handed the woman over to Sunny to shoulder her the rest of the way. Before she left though, Sunny handed a small bag that metallically jingled when it shook, "Here, this is your pay for helping me out. Thanks a ton!" Then Sunny turned toward Doc Mitchell's house and helped the woman limp over to it.

Damian looked at the bag and then looked up, "Yeah, you're welcome!" Content that he now could afford to get some liquor in his system, he headed toward the Prospector Saloon.

When Damian got inside, he could feel the tension in the air as well as hear raised voices over by the bar. Damian walked in the bar to find a middle-aged red-head and a black fellow wearing guard attire and a bulletproof vest that said 'NCRCF' on the back. Damian decided to go sit down at the bar and listen in on the argument to find out what was going on.

"I've had enough screwin' around! If you don't hand over Ringo, I'm gonna come back with my friends and we're burning this place to the ground!" The black man was obviously furious about this 'Ringo' person for some reason.

"We'll keep that in mind. Now, if you're not gonna buy something, get out!" The red-head didn't have a single nervous vibration in her voice.

"You think I'm playin' Trudy? I've got enough dynamite myself to blow this place to kingdom come!" This man wasn't giving up. Then a honey-haired man in a merc adventurer outfit, sitting in a stool at the bar behind this arrogant bastard, proceeds to calmly set his bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla down, stand up, and tap the guy on the shoulder. When the black man turned around to see who the hell was touching him, the blonde man promptly clocked him in the jaw and he fell to the floor.

"Cobb, I've heard enough of your shit to last me three lifetimes and, since I don't plan on living that long, I suggest you get the hell out before I throw you out!" This was a guy Damian could get along quite well with.

With that, the one referred to as 'Cobb' got up and ran out the front door with his tail between his legs. As Cobb ran out, the man turned around to watch him allowing Damian to see his face. He was Caucasian with his hair in a rough settler style, had a rough beard, hazel eyes, and a scar on his left cheek. Sure that Cobb wasn't coming back for more, the man sat back down, finished his Sunset and said, "Trudy, another Sarsaparilla please."

"Of course, Vlad," Trudy went behind the counter and sat a golden bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla in front of him, "and, for gettin' that jackass outta here, this one's on the house."

"Why thank you Trudy." 'Vlad' said.

Moving closer to Trudy, Damian sat in a stool a couple feet away from Vlad's.

Setting his bag down next to him, Damian ordered, "Trudy, I'd like a bottle of whiskey if you don't mind."

"Comin' right up," Trudy replied, "that'll be 10 caps." She sat the bottle of whiskey on the bar in front of Damian.

As Damian gave the caps to Trudy and took a large swig from the bottle, Vlad looked over and remarked, "Whiskey? This early? It's not even eleven."

Damian stopped drinking and turned to him, "Man, I just woke up from a 2-day long dirt nap, my head is still throbbing from being shot, I'm half blind, and I've already got too much Med-X in my system... I need a drink."

"So you're that courier the old bucket of bolts found in the graveyard." Vlad pauses for a moment, "Lucky bastard..." he said quietly to himself.

'I hardly call going half blind lucky...' Damian thought to himself. "So, what was that all about?" he asked.

"Cobb's been looking for a guy named Ringo. Ringo was part of a caravan that was passing by, turns out that the Powder Gangers killed his entire caravan and he was the only survivor." Trudy spoke up, "We let him hide out in town until things cool down."

"We should at least take care of that asshole Cobb." Vlad said before drinking more Sunset.

"And that's when I say this again; I don't want the Powder Gangers killing everyone in the entire town because of this. Besides, even with you, Vlad, we just don't have enough firepower." Trudy replied.

"And that's when I say that if we just sit around with our thumbs up our asses, there won't be a town to defend anyway!" Vlad shot back at Trudy.

"Hmm..." Damian mulled this over in his mind while he took another swig of whiskey, "And if I help?"

Trudy was caught off guard by this, "We don't even know your name. However your help is appreciated."

"Damian Winchester. My name is Damian Winchester." Damian said with a mock-serious look that no one else seemed to catch. Vlad mumbled something but Damian dismissed it as nothing.

"Whoa there, I never voted to take on the Powder Gangers. That's a thousand cap investment you're talking about!" Chet exclaimed.

'Ugh... This guy is giving me a headache...' Damian thought to himself while rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Fine, let them take over the town. I'm sure your business will be much better off." Damian said as he started towards the front door.

"Fine," Chet sighed, "wait there. I've got some armor and ammo in the back." Chet walked into the back room of the store. When he came back out, Chet was carrying a bag and a crate. "There are two more crates of leather armor back there if you'll carry them out for me."

"Alright fine." Damian said, a bit miffed that he had to carry the heavy stuff.

When they headed outside, Damian noticed the town had gathered in front of the saloon mentally preparing themselves for the fight ahead. He also spotted Vlad who looked over at him and Chet.

Damian saw a note of surprise in Vlad's face when he said, "Chet, I thought you were untouchable when it came to bartering!"

Chet, who was starting to set down his crate and bag, becomes distracted with glaring at Vlad and drops his crate on Damian's toe. 'Ack! Goddamnit that hurts!' Damian mentally cursed Chet.

"Fuck off..." Chet retorted, "I hope a storm from the Divide turns you to dust."

Vlad, seeing Damian's pain, visibly flinched, "That's just cruel..." Vlad joked, "Come on, you love me too much to say such a thing!"

Damian looked up at the two after he finished cringing in pain and elbows Chet in the ribs. "Come on and finish helping me unpack this crap." Damian said exasperatedly.

"No, I'm done helping, you have the armor and ammo. I'm done here." Chet snapped and stormed off into his store.

Vlad laughed, "He gets so pissey when I'm around. It's probably because I've screwed him out of his money a few times."

Damian gave Vlad a questioning look, "What do you mean?"

"Chet will try to squeeze as much money as he can out of you. I was able to reverse that. Quite a few times too."

"Uh-huh..." Damian was still thinking about his throbbing toe when it reminded him of Doc. "Hey, let's go see if Doc will help us out."

"Good idea." Vlad stated and they headed off towards the good doctor's house while the townspeople outfitted themselves with the leather armor and ammo.

When they reached the front gate of the house, Damian barely caught a flicker of light out of the left corner of his right eye, surprisingly. Damian looked over to see Victor just sitting in front of shack, doing nothing... "Hey Vlad, how about you go talk to Doc and I'll go see if Victor will help us out too?"

"That... is actually a good idea. That tin can has got to have some kind of firepower." Vlad replied as he headed inside.

Damian strapped his personal duffel bag to his back and jogged off in the direction of Victor. When Damian reached him, he said, "Victor! You're a securitron; you think you could help us with some Powder Gangers trying to take over the town?"

"Trouble with rustlers, huh? Count me in pardner. Those thugs will be headin' home with their tails between their legs soon enough." Victor replied.

'Well that was easy...' Damian thought, "That's great! Just head on over to the saloon, everyone's waiting outside there."

"Alrighty pardner, see ya on the battlefield." Victor confirmed and started rolling on over to the 'battlefield'.

Damian headed back to the house and, when he reached it, Vlad was walking back out with a small bag of what seemed to be stimpacks and two doctor's bags. "Doc can't fight because of his leg but he gave us a bunch of medical supplies." Vlad said when he saw Damian, "I'll bring these to the saloon, you go get Ringo." With that, Vlad hurried off to the Prospector Saloon.

Damian turned toward the old gas station at the back of town and ran off. When he got inside, he noticed Ringo aiming his 9mm pistol at the door from behind the cashiers' counter but put it away when he recognized the one-eyed cowboy. "Is everything ready?" Ringo inquired.

"Yep. The town's all geared up for a fight." Damian confided, "But I think we should haul ass back to the saloon, I'm startin' to get an eerie feeling."

As they both turned towards the door, the door swung open to reveal a nervous-looking Sunny. "They're here."

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><p>As I said before, sorry for the lateness and you should only expect one or two chapters a month. Also, if anyone is interested, I'm going to be posting the song I listened to for inspirationto set the mood so that you, the readers, could look it up and listen to it and perhaps see what was going through my mind as I was writing. For this chapter I listened to 'Walk Away From The Sun' by Seether.

**Update**

As I said in the last chapter, I've changed the story's tense from present to past because it didn't sound right and I fixed a few errors.


	3. Ghost Town Shootout

So, here's the deal. I'm going to update when I can, there is no set deadline for each chapter anyone as it seems I can't keep to them. I once again apologize and ask your forgiveness for the EXTREME lateness of this chapter. Anywho, as the title suggests, you'll actually get to see some violence in this chapter! Yay! I must warn you though, this is my first time writing any kind of violence so, if it seems bad, that is because I am inexperienced at this. If anyone has any pointers for me, leave them in a review for me... Please? One more thing: the song that goes along with this chapter is 'Hero' by Skillet.

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><p>Chapter 3: Ghost Town Shootout<p>

Sunny, Damian, Cheyenne, and Ringo ran out of the gas station, heading for the saloon with Cheyenne and Sunny in the lead. When they drew near, Damian saw the town had moved some large boxes, a few motorcycles, and piled up a bunch of bags of grain for cover in front of the saloon, with Vlad loading a clip into his service rifle when they arrived. Sunny set up behind a motorcycle with Cheyenne at her side, aiming her varmint rifle down the road out of town. Ringo ducked behind a cart near the general store and Damian got behind a wagon in front of the saloon with Vlad. As Damian pulled out his varmint rifle, he called to Sunny, "How many did you say there were?"

"I counted twenty, including Cobb."

"Say what?!" Vlad gave a shocked look to Sunny and Damian, "They must really not like Ringo."

From behind the cart, they heard, "That's very reassuring..." from an anxious Ringo.

"So, counting you, Vlad, Trudy, Pete, Ringo, The townspeople, and me, there are ten of us versus twenty of them." Damian said to Sunny, "We are armed with, what, pistols, a couple rifles, two revolvers, and a handful dynamite that we all have to share against a variety of guns and melee weapons and enough dynamite combined to turn this town into a crater? Piece of cake."

Vlad turned to Damian, "You're that confident in us?"

"Are you not?" Damian questioned.

"Sorry if the odds aren't in our favor."

_Pessimist. _Damian thought at Vlad.

"By the way," Vlad said, "Pete came through with the dynamite," He handed Damian one and tossed another to Ringo, "throw those on my say."

"Do you see them?" Damian asked Vlad.

"Haven't seen them yet." Vlad replied, "Sunny, you're the one with the binoculars, how close are they?"

Sunny looked through her binoculars, which were around her neck, and called back, "They're walking to us, it might be a while."

Damian heard Vlad sigh in exasperation and mumble, "And now we wait… I don't particularly like waiting."

Damian looked around at the townspeople. They all looked nervous, some even throwing accusing glances at Ringo, but they were ready to fight. The waiting was hell on everyone's minds and the tension in the air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Damian realized that the Powder Gangers had a huge advantage over them. They were outmanned, outgunned, and under-experienced, well, Goodsprings was at least. _I have to protect these people, _Damian thought to himself, _if we don't win this, they will all suffer._

The gangers were finally close enough that you could see the wicked grins on their faces. A powder ganger in the middle of the group pulled out a dynamite stick and lit it, but before he could throw it, Vlad shot the dynamite, making it, as well as the ganger holding it, explode. The force of the explosion knocked the others to the ground. Most quickly got to their feet and took cover behind large rocks, picket fences, and others objects large enough to cover a person, but some were still too dazed.

While the gangers were recovering form the blast, Ringo, Damian, Vladimir, Pete, and Sunny all took out their dynamite and lit them. Vlad yelled, "THROW!" and everyone threw the dynamite at the grounded gangers. They ducked behind their cover for a few seconds until they heard a chain of explosions, at which point they looked up to see the dynamite turned three gangers into bits and pieces of flesh, most of it still flying through the air.

Then, all hell broke loose. Both sides opened fire on each other with most of the bullets missing because the ones who shot were inexperienced but Vlad and Damian were hitting their marks almost every time, both getting head- and body-shots that were equally lethal. _This guy has obviously had training. Interesting. _Damian thought to himself.

At this point Victor finally arrived, taking his time rolling in from his shack. "Eat lead, varmints!" Victor yelled as he lit the gangers up with 9mm rounds from his machinegun-arm. He was able to kill two of them and wounded a third, but then Cobb and two of his men jumped out tossed lit dynamite at Victor. The dynamite bounced and rolled to Victor's wheel and he leaned forward to see the fuses rapidly shortening. Victor was only able to say, "Well, crap…" before he was blown ten feet high. He crashed to the ground, lower half practically gone with bits and pieces of wiring and metal fall down around the lifeless pile of metal.

"No!" Sunny would've ran to the dead robot if it wasn't for the gunfire flying around her.

_Damn it! _Damian look away from Victor and over to Cobb who had a triumphant, evil grin on his face as he dove back behind cover. Damian reloaded his rifle and took aim at the ganger next to Cobb. Damian put a bullet right through the man's head, wiping the cocky grin off Cobb's face, and putting one on his face.

He was into his third clip when Damian saw a shirtless powder ganger wielding a baseball bat jump out from behind his cover about ten feet away and howled into the wind with rage. While the Goodsprings townspeople were focused on the gangers actually firing back at them, Damian turned his attention to the ganger in question and emptied the three bullets left in the clip of his rifle into the man's chest while the bat-wielding maniac charged and showed no signs of slowing down. _Great… He's using Psycho… Fucking perfect..._ Damian thought to himself. When the maniac reached Damian, he swung down with his bat with all the strength of a super mutant. Damian lifted his varmint rifle to block the attack and, when the weapons collided, the varmint rifle shattered. With what was left of the butt of the gun in his right hand, Damian swung up at the rage-filled man, smacking him in the face and breaking his nose. While the ganger regained his composure, Damian jumped to his feet and, dropping the remains of the rifle, prepared for the next attack.

The ganger was pissed off that this cowboy hadn't died yet and the fact that he broke his nose just made matters worse. The psycho in his system fueling him, the insane ganger took another downward swing at Damian, aiming at his head, and hoping to splatter his brains all over the sandy dirt of Goodsprings. Damian saw the wild yet clumsy attack coming and slid to the left to dodge the bat and reached far into the left flap of his duster with his right hand, seeking the hidden sheath, and gripped the hilt of his hidden weapon. Before the ganger could register that he missed (probably due to the psycho), he dropped the bat. The confused man looked at his hands, wondering why he had dropped it, only to find two stumps where his hands used to be. He barely had time to realize that his hands were still gripping the bat when his entire world went black. In one fluid motion, Damian had flipped his weapon around backwards and stabbed it through the handless man's back, running straight through his heart, killing him instantly. The body slumped to the ground lifeless, fresh blood glistening off Damian's Machete Gladius.

Damian looked back at the battle to see about half of the Goodspringers were dead or pretty damn close where the gangers were also half-dead, but that still left them outnumbered. "Alright, enough of this shit!" Damian said, his voice filling with anger and frustration. He switched the machete to his left hand while his right hand pulled out his revolver. Without a second thought, Damian started walking straight at the gangers and shot three times, each hitting a surprised ganger in the head. At this point, they were smart enough to duck behind cover.

As he kept walking, Damian noticed Vlad had joined him in pushing the Powder Gangers back. This provided confidence to what was left of the town militia and they all began moving forward in this "walking charge" Damian had started. He saw a ganger stand up in an attempt to get a better shot at him, but Damian put him back on the ground with a bullet to the ganger's knee. The crippled man tried to curse at him but Vlad shot him in the heart before he could say much. Damian took aim at a few more Powder Gangers, but they dove behind cover before he could shoot them and ended up wasting the last two bullets in his magnum. The gangers figured out Damian was out of ammo and they jumped up to kill him and were promptly peppered with bullets from the townspeople.

Now there was four Powder Gangers left, including Cobb, who could see clearly that he had severely underestimated Goodsprings. Well, two of them at least. Cobb thought the best course of action at that point was to get the hell out of there, so he got up and started to run. Damian saw Vlad knock over a ganger while sprinting after him, leaving Damian with the three grunts left.

Each of the gangers in front of him wielded a different weapon. The closest held a golf club (really?), the middle one had a stiletto, and the furthest was lying dazed and flat on the ground, holding onto a single shotgun. As the first charged him, Damian flipped his gun around so he was holding the barrel, and when the ganger reached him, blocked a horizontal swing from the left with his Machete Gladius. He pistol-whipped the ganger across the jaw and then slashed the ganger's throat. He brought his attention to the knife-ganger who tried to stab him in the gut, but Damian stabbed his arm and smacked him in the face with his revolver. Damian spun the ganger around in a reverse head-lock, putting him between Damian and a now standing shotgun-ganger. The ganger chose this moment to shoot and ended up turning the helpless ganger's chest inside-out. Damian threw the corpse at him, knocking him back down to the ground, and proceeded to place the machete between his own teeth in order to reload his .44 magnum with a speed-reloader from inside his pocket. As Damian clicked the gun's cylinder back into place, the re-downed ganger got the corpse off of him but then had his brains splattered on the ground by Damian who had removed the Machete Gladius from his mouth.

Damian looked over to where Vlad was and saw him on top of Cobb, trying to stab him in the throat with a combat knife, but Cobb's arms were not letting the knife any closer to him. Damian took a second to aim and then shot Cobb through both arms, allowing the knife to plunge into Cobb's neck. As Vlad stood up, combat knife in hand, Damian spun his Magnum around his finger and holstered it. "We did it Vlad. We took care of the Powder Gangers." Damian called with a smile.

Vlad nodded, "Yes that's all nice and such but," he pointed his combat knife at Damian menacingly, "tell me why you have a god damn Legion machete."

Damian stopped smiling, his eyebrow rose into an intrigued look, and he thought, _It's good to see I'm not the only one who hates the Legion with a passion. _"I take it your against the Legion?" Damian replied.

"They killed my sister. So yeah, I want to kill every single fucking one of them!" Vlad nearly yelled, his grip tightened on his knife. "You still haven't answered my question."

"I took this from the corpse of a Centurion who used it to kill my father." Damian replied calmly, "I plan on using it to kill Caesar."

Vlad's eyebrows shot up, "Really?" he smiled as he sheathed his knife, "That makes me want to join you in killing those Legion bitches."

_I might have to take him up on that._

Ringo and Sunny jogged over to the two. Ringo spoke first, "I can't express how thankful I am that you helped me. This is all I can give right now but it's the least I can do." Ringo placed a small bag of caps in Damian's hand.

Damian nodded happily, "Happy to assist."

"Oh sure, leave out me and almost all of Goodsprings." Vlad said, sarcasm evident.

Ringo laughed, "Don't worry, I won't forget about Goodsprings. I'll figure out a way to pay you all back somehow."

"Well I don't know about you guys but I think it's about time we celebrate." Sunny interjected. Damian smiled and nodded in agreement. Sunny glanced at Vladimir for a moment, "You gonna join?"

Vlad scratched his chin. "I never miss a celebration, but I'll be late for this one. I have something to do."

Sunny shrugged, "Alright, let's go then." Damian and Ringo followed her to the saloon. As they walked by, Damian saw that three of the townspeople had died in the fight and they were laying side-by-side, each with a white sheet covering them. Easy Pete had been shot in the leg and another settler was wounded in his arm but they were both bandaged up. As Damian walked into the saloon, he thought, _You can't save them all I guess._

Easy Pete and two others followed the trio into the Prospector's Saloon where the settlers' families were waiting. As the townspeople rejoined their families, Damian sat down at the end of the bar. Trudy was already serving drinks to people and, when she got to Damian, she handed a large bottle of whiskey to him and said, "This is for helping us, Damian, and don't worry about paying for it, it's on the house."

Damian looked at the wine bottle-sized whiskey, "Thanks Trudy!" Damian said with a smile, "This thing will probably last me a couple of days."

Trudy gave him a confused look, "That should last someone at least a week…"

"True, but I'm not just anybody." Damian uncorked the bottle and took a large swig from it. He savored the bitter taste for a moment and then swallowed, feeling the fire-liquid burn down his throat. This is what he loved about whiskey, that and the eventual buzz you get from drinking a lot of it. _Here's to you mom and dad. _Damian took another drink of his alcohol.

After a few minutes of people celebrating and getting drunk, the crowd started cheering, "Go, go, go, go!" over and over again. When Damian looked down the bar, he saw Sunny and Ringo each had eight shot-glasses of vodka lined up in front of them and were racing to see who would finish first. Ringo was visibly having trouble drinking straight vodka that fast but sunny was blowing through them. Sunny won with Ringo still left with three more glasses. As punishment, Ringo had to finish the vodka and listen to Sunny's bragging, after which the crowd dispersed back among the bar.

Damian chuckled to himself and took another couple gulps of whiskey and, when he looked back, he did a double-take and nearly spit out his whiskey. Ringo had been spun around on the bar stool, his back leaning against the bar, with Sunny on his lap, sticking her tongue down his throat. _That was… sudden. _Shaking his head at the two lovebirds, Damian returned to thoughts of his family in Arizona.

Vlad walked in through the back door of the saloon and stared at Sunny and Ringo as he walked by them, bewildered that the unlikely couple would already be dueling with their tongues like they were. He said, "Sorry to interrupt your philosophical meditation but I would like to talk to you." and sat down next to Damian.

Damian looked over at Vlad. "What's up?"

"I don't think I showed as much appreciation as I would have liked for helping us out, stabbing you in the neck isn't really the reward I'd expect from a stranger that needed assistance." Vlad explained.

Damian had to laugh at this, "Got that right."

"And since you're planning to assassinate one of the most powerful assholes in the history of the Mojave you might need this." Vlad said as he pulled out a revolver with engravings on it and placed it in front of Damian on the bar. "It's called the Ranger Sequoia, only a handful of people own it, most of them are in the NCR. Think of this as a payment or an apology- whatever helps you sleep at night."

Damian was amazed at how the intricate carvings on the gun made it so… "Deadly looking…" he muttered.

Vlad nodded, "I've tried it on a Deathclaw before… well a dead one. I'd say its damn good for taking one of those down even though I never really tested that theory. And I really don't want to either."

Damian grinned at the humorous comment, "I like revolvers, and I find them very reliable." He picked up the revolver to check it out. The handle sported a golden bear (symbol of the NCR rangers) on it's hind legs, around and on the cylinder there were swirls and roses, and there were words on the barrel. On the right side, it said 'For Honorable Service' and, on the left side, it continued 'Against All Tyrants'. He also noticed that it didn't have any ammo in it.

"Oh and did I mention that I don't have any spare ammo for it?" Vlad asked.

Damian's grin was wiped right off at this comment, "Fuck…"

Meanwhile, the lovebirds had really gotten into it and were feeling each other up quite roughly. Their forcefulness caused them to be unbalanced and they ended up slipping off the barstool. When Vlad and Damian heard the large thud nearby, they both looked over to see the two lying on the floor looking like they were wondering why the world had just flipped upside-down. Damian and Vlad both found this immensely entertaining and couldn't help but laugh and let out a series of snorts. Sunny and Ringo quickly got to their feet and briskly walked out the front door, Sunny practically dragging Ringo.

"I totally want to see the 'morning after' of that situation." Damian said still laughing.

Vlad, with a little more of his composure regained than Damian, called, "Hey Tru-!" before he could finish, Trudy slid a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla to him and Vlad grabbed it off the bar, "Thank you!"

After a couple more hours of partying, drinking, and talking, Damian tiredly told Vlad, "I think I'll need to find a place to sleep now…"

Vlad glanced over at Damian. "I can help with that. I have an old trailer next to my house. It has a bed. I don't use it so you can sleep in there tonight."

Damian nodded back, "That'll do, thanks."

Vlad waved it off, "Yeah whatever." He said as he walked out of the bar with Damian following, "If you need anything you can knock on the door but I'll probably be sleeping like a rock- so you might as well not try." Damian soon discovered that Vlad lived in the house directly behind the saloon. Not only did it have a large metal trailer next to it, the property even had a small maize field. Although Damian would have liked to, he was too tired to crack a joke about the garden. Instead, he stumbled over to the trailer, half-empty whiskey bottle in hand. He went inside, and laid down at the end of the giant tin can for a restless night of sleep.

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><p>So, it seems Damian might be dual-wielding revolvers in the future. And who is this family he keeps mentioning? Anyone hooked yet? *wink* *nudge* Anyway, I'll try to post more often in the future, leave a review if you liked the chapter and, if you didn't, tell me why in a review, but go easy on me. Also, check out yousaidwhat's chapter that he'll have posted soon. If you don't know about it yet, the story is from Vlad's point of view and will allow you to see what happens in his own adventures in the Mojave.<p> 


	4. Nightmares of the Past

__Nightmares of the Past

Theme song: Mad World by Gary Jules

_He was crawling through a square tunnel that was too small to breathe in. All he wanted to do was get out and run away, but he had to do this. If he didn't, he would never be able to live with himself._

_The boy made it to a grating through which he looked out to see three large men in red standing around a beaten man on his knees. Next to him was the unmoving form of his beloved wife lying in a crimson puddle that was slowly growing. The child in the vent stopping breathing when he saw this, unable to think or move to do anything._

_One of the outsiders moved behind the kneeling man who showed no fear but complete sadness. The heavily-armored murderer pulled back the broken man's head and places a blade, glistening wet from its recent kill, under his neck. When the man's head came up, he saw the kid behind the grating and utter fear finally crept into his blue eyes. _

_Before he could anything though, the blade quickly drew back, releasing a torrent of the white-bearded man's life-essence, all the while the foreigner behind him laughing. _

_The boy realized what was happening too late and burst from the vent, "Dad!"_

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><p>A taste of things to come.<p> 


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